modelled on Petrarch's XII. Eclogues (1350), which were the first modern Latin bucolics, and on Mantuan (1402). And these modern Latin pastorals became so much admired that a collection of thirty-eight of them was printed at Basel in 1546. Mantuan was read and taught as a classic: see Shaksp., Love's Labour Lost, iv. 2, where Holofernes quotes a line of his and says, 'Old Mantuan! old Mantuan! who understandeth thee not loves thee not.' In 1563 came Googe's Eglogs, Epitaphs, and Sonnets, and this abundance of pastorals is probably traceable to the fascination of the Italian poets. Spenser's Eclogue December is a literal rendering from the French of Clément Marot. (Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, and Critique on the Faery Queen.) In the Elizabethan age pastoral poetry was a popular delight. Bishop Hall, Prologue to Satires, 1597, exclaims Would ye but breathe within a wax-bound quill, and in his first satire he complains that he cannot Speak rimes unto mine oaten minstrelsie. 6 In his History of English Poetry Warton remarks: This familiarity with the pagan story was owing to the numerous English versions of them. Translations occupied every pen, and acquired a general notoriety. Learned allusions were no longer obscure 2 to common readers; but their extravagances 1 Petrarch introduced the form Eglogue for Eclogue, imagining the word to be derived from aἶξ (αἶγός), 'a goat,' and to mean 'the conversation of goatherds.' But, as Dr. Johnson observes in his Life of A. Philips, it could only mean 'the talk of goats.' Such a compound, however, could not even exist, as it would be aiyo-λoyía, if anything. Ecloga (en-λoyaí) of course mean simply Selected Pieces, a name afterwards given to the poems which Virgil himself called by the descriptive name Bucolica. 2 The chief translations of the classics after 1550 are Virgil's Eneid, by Phaier (1558); by Stanihurst (1583); the Culex, by Spenser (1591); Ovid's Metamorphoses, by Golding (1565); Epistles, by Turberville (1567); Tristia, by Churchyard (1580); Horace's Epistles and Satires, by Drant (1567); Homer, were imitated, and not their natural beauties.' Again: 'When the queen paraded through a country town, almost every pageant was a pantheon. When she paid a visit at the house of any of her nobility, on entering the hall she was-saluted by the Penates, and conducted to her privy chamber by Mercury. At dinner select transformations of Ovid's Metamorphoses were exhibited in confectionery. she condescended to walk in the garden, the lake was covered with Tritons and Nereids; the pages of the family were converted into wood nymphs, who peeped from every bower, and the footmen gambolled over the lawns in the figure of satyrs.1 When When her majesty hunted in the park, she was met by Diana, who, pronouncing our royal prude to be the brightest paragon of unspotted chastity, invited her to groves free from the intrusions of Acteon. In one of the fulsome interludes at court, the singing boys of her chapel presented the story of the three rival goddesses on Mount Ida, to which her majesty was ingeniously added as a fourth; and Paris was arraigned in form for adjudging the golden apple to Venus, which was due to the queen alone.' (Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poetry, ed. 1824, vol. iv. p. 323.) Besides the classics and the Italian tales, Gothic romance still held its ground. 'Giants, dragons, and enchanted castles, borrowed from the magic storehouse of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, began to be employed by the epic muse. The Gothic and pagan fictions were blended and incorporated' (ib.); and we find in Sidney's Arcadia an application of the Italian pastoral to feudal manners, and so fashionable did pastoral writings soon become that the language of courtiers with all its false and tawdry finery was put into the mouths of simple shepherds. Spenser, whose Shepheard's Calendar (1579) is the masterpiece of all pastorals in that age, brought his treatment nearer to the truth of nature; yet the Doric rusticity of the dia by Chapman (1604-14). Queen Elizabeth herself translated Seneca's 1 See account of the pageant at Kenilworth in Scott's novel of that name. logue is somewhat repulsive to modern ears; and this, which was native to Theocritus, is borrowed, not always correctly, by his English imitator. In 1590 appeared Sidney's Arcadia, one of the most beautiful efforts of English fancy in that age-not exactly à pastoral, since it has far less to do with shepherds than with courtiers and knights, though the idea might have been suggested by the popularity of the Diana of Montemayor, to which allusion has been already made. In the preface of his edition of the Ar cadia (1867) Mr. Friswell says: "The scene is laid in a fabulous and semi-pagan Greece, where young people wander in woods, kill lions and bears, fall in love, believe in Christianity and heathen gods, wear armour like the Tudor knights, and fight with Helots and Lacedæmonians, in a most confusing way.' It would now, perhaps, be thought very tedious, but it is less pedantic than most books of that time, and its popularity was great in the days of Shakspere and for years afterwards (Hallam, vol. ii. p. 216). Early in the seventeenth century appeared the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher (the forerunner of Comus), Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (1613), also well known to Milton, and the Sad Shepherd of Jonson. Touching the influence of Spenser on succeeding poetry, Professor Masson (vol. i. p. 410 foll.) remarks that about 1630 there was a distinct Spenserian School,' partly of professed and partly of unconscious disciples. As the poetry of Spenser is 'as nearly poetry in its essence as any that ever was,' a resemblance to him was thought a warrant of poetic quality. This is seen in Chapman, Jonson, Drayton, and others, Shakspere being an exception, sui generis, and of no school. But there were also those who purposely studied Spenser, made him their avowed model, and cultivated his forms of poetry-the pastoral and the descriptive allegory; and among these W. Browne and Giles and Phineas Fletcher stand most prominent. For the mistakes which Spenser has made as to the meaning of some of the old words he uses, see notes by Skeat on the two concluding eclogues of the Shepheard's Calendar. Browne's Brit. Pastorals (1613-1616) are cast very closely in pastoral form, and are a story of shepherds amid scenes of English country life, full of luxuriant natural descriptions, with only an occasional flight to higher subjects. Spenser is acknowledged several times by name, but traces of other poets (especially of Du Bartas 1) may be discerned. The Shepherd's Pipe, of seven eclogues (1614), is a simpler poem, and one of equal skill. Of Giles Fletcher there only remains Christ's Victory over Death (1610), which is very Spenserian. Phineas Fletcher's two great poems are the Piscatory Eclogues, where fishermen take the place of shepherds, and the Purple Island, a poem describing the anatomy of the human body under an image indicated by that name. Both were published at Cambridge soon after 1632. The old criticisms on what the pastoral ought to be may be divided into two classes, each of which failed, though in a different way, of hitting the mark. Those who insisted upon a 'golden age,' simple manners, mean sentiments, and the like, confused the pastoral of real life, which had long ceased to exist (if it ever did exist after Theocritus), with the changed artificial growth which had sprung out of it. Those on the other hand who avoided this particular mistake, but forbade all allusions to politics or religion as foreign to the nature of the pastoral, forgot that all pastoral poets after Virgil's time had admitted such allusions, and by so doing had, as it were, legalised them; and these same critics fell into the totally distinct error of allowing too wide a definition of this sort of poetry, as if any rural poem whatever were ipso facto a pastoral. Having briefly drawn this distinction, let us now examine by way of Sylvester translated the Divine Weeks and Works of Du Bartas in 1605, which was very popular till 1650, but afterwards ceased to be read. When Milton was a boy, everybody was reading it. The first part of the poem is called 'The First Week,' or 'Birth of the World,' and it is divided into seven days or cantos. The Second Week contains the Bible history as far as the Kings and Chronicles, also divided into days, each corresponding to an epoch and headed with a name (Adam, Noah, &c.). Four days are complete; the rest are unfinished. illustration a few of the opinions of successive critics, remarking upon them as we proceed. In the Preface to John Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess we read: A pastoral is a representative, of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures; at least, not exceeding former pictures and vulgar traditions. They are) not to be adorned with any art but such as nature is said to bestow, such as singing and poetry, or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs, &c.' Again, Drayton, in his Preface to the Pastorals, observes: 'The subject of pastoral, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, and of the coarsest woof in appearance, yet the highest and noblest matters of the world may be shadowed forth in them. The chief law of pastoral is decorum, and that not to be exceeded without leave, or, at least, fair warning.' Pope, in the Introduction to his Pastorals (1704), gives a résumé of the opinions of preceding critics, the chief of which are that Pastoral is an image of the golden age,' so that ideal and not actual shepherds have to be described. The principal points to be observed are simplicity, brevity, and delicacy.' 'The fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic, the thoughts plain-the expression humble, yet as pure as the language will afford, neat but not florid, easy yet lively.' The joyous side of shepherd life and not the miseries should be shown. The Eclogues should be various, each having its own particular beauties. In the Guardian (1713) pastoral poetry is spoken of as describing a state of early innocence and joy, 'where plenty begot pleasure, and pleasure begot singing, and singing begot poetry, and poetry begot pleasure again.' Simplicity must be pourtrayed, but troubles should be concealed, except such small annoyances as merely set off the general happiness of the state. The shepherds need not, however, be 'dull and stupid ;' they may have 'good sense and even wit, provided it be not too gallant and refined;' but they must not 'make deep reflections,' which are to be left to the reader. The reasons why we are pleased with pastoral are threefold |